July 2021 (iii)city summer inventory
It is probably more related to the process of packing my belongings into boxes than some larger New York City zeitgeist but July has felt like a thick fog of black trash bags steaming in the sun, dog-day cicadas, falling pollen, banda tubas in the park, sidewalk cookouts, busted bicycle tires, scorching heat, flooded subways tunnels, inarticulateness, inaudible subway announcements, Unhealthy Air Quality for Sensitive Groups, cool air spilling out of subway cars, the reek of hot trash, occasional breezes, ants trickling through the window, water droplets from unseen AC units, the smell of exhaust, the smell of shit, the smell of limes, “The vibe this summer isn’t bad but it is very ‘the summer before the twentieth anniversary of 9/11,’” wildfire haze, cookout haze, heat haze, moving trucks, garbage trucks, sneaker stink, subway-screech headaches, S Train rattles, 4 Train repairs, sleepless heat, braindead tourists, public parks, speakeasies, iPhone photos, purplish sunsets, cardboard boxes in clear plastic, hums of refrigerators, “Virtual contact worse than no contact for over-60s in lockdown, says study,” a man playing the saxophone in front of the Met Museum, a man playing the melodica in front of Citi Field, news of rage, news of fire, news of death, news of the Olympics, news of the Delta variant, rum drinks, awkward eye contact, “‘CHEESE!’ Over 1 Million Times,” not having any cash, phallic spaceships, thrums of machinery, cars lurching into crosswalks, the blinking orange palms of DON’T WALK signals, crowds of people, panting dogs, heavy camera equipment, sweaty masks, bored people, timid people, people making out, half-fulfilled desires for new beginnings, content fatigue, COVID fatigue, COVID death, torpor, ennui, climate reports of further ruin, climate reports of further sluggishness, a sign outside a bar that reads Virgin Mojito Slush, tiny apartments, museum legs, bad posture, lines outside the UHAUL rental office, a car without a hood that almost ran over my foot in the line outside the UHAUL rental office, a poster of Joe Biden hanging in the hardware store where I bought a wrench to take apart a table, men moving sacks of cement on enormous pallets, a City that on good days feels storied and vibrant and on bad ones like it was assembled from a landfill, black trash bags in the sun, bodies of birds, bodies of ants, black trash bags in the sun—
ben tapeworm
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